


Salt Over Your Shoulder

by Echinoderma



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:33:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4016425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echinoderma/pseuds/Echinoderma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To the people of Daein, he was a demon, a scourge, myth and monster made real by the hard edge of steel. The bringer of beasts, the Immortal Vanguard, the Crimean savage. A common wretch who had struck a deal with a devil for power to rival the Mad King himself.<br/>--<br/>A snapshot of war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Salt Over Your Shoulder

**Author's Note:**

> small piece. not nearly as dramatic as the summary would lead you to believe. I named the daein soldiers after my favorite dogs that frequent my work

_To the people of Daein, he was a demon, a scourge, myth and monster made real by the hard edge of steel. The bringer of beasts, the Immortal Vanguard, the Crimean savage. A common wretch who had struck a deal with a devil for power to rival the Mad King himself._

 

\----------

 

"-ugh."

 

A woman stands, clad in beaten, bloodied armor.  She barely makes it halfway before her legs give, tendons overworked and sliced to ribbons on one of them and the muscles weak from lying in the ever-present snow. 

 

A slaughter, really. The army had sounded glorious, she'd joined with the blind fervor of the faithful, her belief in the silver-haired maiden spurring her on through the bitter chill. She'd been just shy of service age when King Ashnard had been deposed; cowering under her bed as the Crimean army marched through her lands, flushed with rage and helplessness.

 

This time she leans on her spear for support, the shaft splintering, groaning, but holding under her weight. Surveying, one eye crusted shut with blood, she manages one, trembling, shaking step before the groan of iron among the muck catches her attention.

 

"-sa? Is that you?"  

 

Familiar. "Theo?"

 

It takes her a second to find him amidst the mud and gore, the voice thick and ragged-rough, muffled by his helmet.

 

"You're alive?"

 

"... It seems so."

 

She kneels at his side, his legs at odd angles and his armor dented, torn in places, the steel ripped apart as if it were nothing more than tissue paper. The work of sub-human beasts, no doubt, a torrent of savages in the wake of that damned Crimean general.

 

"We lost, Elsa. Even with the Maiden on our side..."

 

"It's not over yet. They haven't reached the capitol, there’s still- ah!”

 

She stops, ducking down, hiding among the fetid bodies, the tall blood drenched grass. Two figures cut through the bloated, stagnant air. a mage, the hem of his white robes stained black with gore, his hair a lightless cascade of black against his back. The other, tall and thickly built, vermillion cloak and tattered headband waving slightly in the icy breeze.

 

Theo coughs, but doesn't stir under the arm thrown across his chest. Voices filter through the silence, the mage's clipped and cold assessment reaching her ears.

 

"This regiment was particularly disorganized,” he says, the two of them unperturbed by the bloodbath at their feet. “Poorly trained and poorly equipped… hardly worth the wear on our own weapons.”

 

His companion hums, staring off into the distance. “Casualties?”

 

“None. Minor injuries among ourselves… the Gallians emerged essentially unscathed.” They’re walking closer, steps in sync. “Pathetic, really.”

 

She hears her teeth grind, blood rushing past her ears.

 

"These weapons are hardly fit enough to take with us. The soldiers are still restless with the promise of battle, and there is little to survey here… We should press onward towards Nevassa.”

 

They stop not three feet from her position and she dares to look upon them, the mage looking at the other man with a narrowed, red-eyed gaze. The twisting mark upon his forehead makes her blood run cold; superstition and stories of those-with-the-mark, the branded, cursed with half-breed blood.

 

There was gossip, of course. Rumors spread through the small, ravaged towns at the end of the Mad King’s War. The merciless general and the raven-haired wraith by his side, whispering secrets only demons could know. Her eyes widen, a gasp slipping past her lips and she bites her lip and shivers- this must be them-

 

“... Ah.” The half-blood turns towards her, looks down like one would look upon an insect crawling along the ground. “It looks like this one is still alive.”

 

Her training tells her to hold, to stand fast in the face of danger and she doesn’t move, doesn’t budge when a foot presses her face into the ground, the heel of the boot biting into the back of her neck.

 

“Soren, stop.” The other’s voice is low and rumbling, gaze still fixed on some far-off point along the horizon. His eyes are blue, she notices, when they flicker briefly towards her, over Theo’s unmoving form. “Just leave her.”

 

“Ike-”

 

“Soren.” He repeats, more forcefully. The pressure vanishes, and she tries to scramble back, her legs useless, boneless weights, her arms shaking with anxiety while adrenaline holds her together. “We should get moving.”

 

“...As you wish.”

 

He stares at her again. The man is decorated with scars, blood and bile crusted up to his elbows, coating his sword. General Ike, the same who’d marched through her beloved home all those years ago

 

Soren scoffs, returning to his place at the General’s side, casting her a fleeting glare. Ike turns, walking back through the path he’d created.

 

“We should get moving.” He repeats, softer, and she watches them depart, two wavering silhouettes against the dull, overcast sky.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
